English 421: Technical Writing

 The pirate's ship activity that we are doing in class is an obvious analogy for the skills which are very crucial to the technical writing field.  While the ability to organize and classify information, like the step-by-step directions, are definitely important, there were some smaller lessons to be learned as well.  For example, we were pretty sure that we had most of the steps in the correct order, but weren't totally convinced.  However, someone had the idea to look at the tiny parts of ink which got cut off and ended up on the pieces above and/or below the piece they belonged to.  While this wasn't enough to order the pieces by any stretch, it was definitely enough to confirm or disconfirm the order we had them placed in.  This is representative of the use of sources in writing.  While they alone can't prove your point for you, they can reinforce your stance.  This makes the difference between the okay writing and the excellent writing, much in the same way that it made the difference between an okay pirate ship and a magnificent ghost ship, assuming that we get the glow-in-the-dark paint, of course.

- Pat Connaughton